Sounding Off: Motto: trust but verify

Letters? About a total of zero. E-mails? A few. Dirty laundry? Almost 300 sacks. Phone calls? Some 4,000! Chris Erskine drives down to find out what happened to his little girl who went off to college

We're off to college, her mother and I, to verify the living accommodation and to make sure our lovely and patient older daughter has made a wise decision, apartment wise. Trust but verify, that's our motto. It's what won the Cold War.

"Mom won the Cold War?" the boy asks as we pack up the car.
"Not alone," I say.
"But I was there," she says.
"Way to go, Mom."

With that victory behind her, we are now invading San Diego, a sleepy little border town with a big spirit. There are seven ways to get from Los Angeles to San Diego, none of them good. Seven bottlenecks. Pick your poison.

"Should I take the 5?' says my wife, who's driving.
"The 5's good," I say.
'Don't you think the 15 would be better?"

Just like her to suggest something, then when I agree, to question the decision. She's like Harry Truman polling his Cabinet. Whatever I say, Harry does the opposite.

"I think we'll take the 15," she says.
"You won't regret it," I say.

I'm nothing if not supportive. She drives through Pasadena as if fleeing a bank heist. It makes me want to question her past, except that her past is now my past. If she was a bank robber in an earlier life, I was probably one too.

"What's that truck doing?" she asks.
"Which truck?"
"In the carpool lane," she says. "What's a truck doing in a carpool lane?"
"The breaststroke?"
"Go to sleep," she says.

I snooze a little, or as well as you can when your spouse is driving. It's an interesting dynamic, having your spouse drive. I trust her more than anyone in the world, yet I can't relax when she is at the wheel.

"Look at that truck," she says, grunting. "What an idiot."

And then there's this baby sleeping in the car seat. At any moment, the baby could wake up and holler all the way to Mission Bay. The longest trip since Da Gama took off looking for India.

"Maybe we should take the 605," she says.
"The 605 would be good," I say. "No, I think I'm taking the 210," she decides.

At the end of this rainbow awaits our lovely and patient older daughter, a college junior now. Frantically sweeping her new kitchen in anticipation of our arrival.

She left us weeks ago, packed up the little car and just fled one morning the way she always does this time of year.

"Call when you get there," her mother ordered.
"Don't forget to write," I said.

As if she would ever write. In the two years she's been in college, I have a sum total of zero letters. There have been a few e-mails and 4,000-some cellphone calls. A couple of mail parcels and 300 sacks of dirty laundry on weekends and holidays. Not one letter. Probably, she's still working on it. Getting the ending just right. Ironing out those verb tenses.

So, eager yet uninvited, we are off to check out her new apartment, the one we're financing, sight unseen. College kids, sometimes they'll live almost anywhere.

"Take another nap," my wife urges, then leans forward towards the wheel, as if driving a dog sled.

And in a few hours, we arrive in San Diego. Land of the perpetual tan and 65-year-olds who look barely 50. Where people still name their kids Sandy or Summer. Biff or Bob.
As always, the nation's worst drivers are out to greet us.

"Thank God, we made it," my wife says.
"You know, this looks a lot like Albuquerque," I say.
"You've never been to Albuquerque," my wife says.
"We're in Albuquerque?" the little girl asks.
"Aaaaahhhhhhh!" screams the baby.
"Aaaaahhhhhhh!" screams my wife.

College Avenue, here we come.